There is a multitude of wonderful solo piano masterpieces out there, that get overlooked in the abyss of Spotify. These songs, in my eyes, are so good that they make you wonder how this one incredible instrument, the piano, provides the possibility to produce such a complete and perfect piece of music.

Within the solo piano music genre, there are several styles of composing (I’m talking New Age and Contemporary Piano compositions, rather than the traditional classical compositions). There’s calm, peaceful and relaxing new age piano solos written in predominantly major scales. This makes for great background spa music or generally for peaceful background listening. Then there’s calming music, which based on my preferences is almost always mellow, slightly dramatic, full of emotion, slightly bluesy and written in minor scale. This is the perfect music to wind down to at the end of a long day. It’s also music that I consider perfect for film. I’ve selected my six favorite playlists out there based on both styles of listening. I hope you will give these playlists a listen, they are my six all-time favorite piano playlists. I will distinguish them as either as calm or calming playlists.

Call me selfish for mentioning my own created playlist first 😊. This playlist is an amalgamation of my all-time favorites, the ones that have left me in awe. If I don't absolutely love the track then you won't find it here. I’ve been building this playlist up over the past year and have found inspiration from listening to every single featured piece. This is a calming playlist, for the most part written in minor key and featuring a wide range of New Age piano composers. I tend to gravitate towards the mellower tracks, as these just have way of touching me and speaking to me more. If you like ‘sad piano’, you’ll like this playlist.

Shoshanna Michel has done a wonderful job of compiling the most beautiful of solo piano tracks. Her playlist is hard to classify as calming vs calm, it contains a little bit of both, although is heavier on the ‘calming’ side. The songs contained in this playlist are all full of emotion and have a mystery to them. Her taste in piano music is similar to mine and for this reason I’ve listened to her playlist over and over.

Of the playlists I’m mentioning, this is by far the darkest. These songs are stirring and awaken something in you. There is so much emotion and depth to dark piano solos and I find myself listening to this music when I seek an escape from a mundane reality. I am immediately immersed in deep and powerful feelings when tuning in to Sombre Calming Piano.

Yes, that’s correct! 270 songs in a playlist. That’s around 9 hours of listening! With such a large range in music, it’s only normal to capture a large range of piano solos, both calm and calming. In both cases, the title description ‘soothing’ is very fitting. The playlist curator has good taste in curating music, and I can be assured when listening to this playlist, that I can let it play for hours with minimal skips. I love tuning in to this playlist when I have a long day of chores or cooking ahead and my hands are tied up. I can trust that the selections in this playlist will get me through the day 😊.

This playlist, of all I mentioned, would best describe calm piano music (not calming 😊). The playlist is very peaceful, soothing and flowing. Perfect for background listening in a spa, doctor’s office or any office at that. The curator has done a great job of selecting music that all fits into that style (this is not easy to do considering the wide range of moods portrayed in new age contemporary piano music). There is use of minor scale, but the song selections still make for peaceful, light listening. There are no dark or heavy tracks to be found here.